substance
by basterd
Summary: short stories about other pairings. mostly vyv/neil. how shameful.
1. all of them

[AN: wrote drabbles for all the pairings because of kirby. what a good idea.]

* * *

**vyvyan/rick:**

Vyvyan is giggling, one hand high on his chest and the other pressing at his stomach. A tear trails down his cheek and his wheezing laughter comes out like the most joyous of seals.

It's making Rick laugh, hand clutching at the chair, cheeks aching but unable to look away from Vyvyan.

Vyvyan slips further to the ground, well and truly kneeling on the floor now, hunched over and still yipping in between gasps for breath.

Rick's doing the same, chest too tight to breathe, and it suddenly hits him all at once, crashes over him, the most staggering series of emotions he's ever experienced. He feels submerged, brimming with absolute joy and pleasure and his shoulders are shaking and Vyv is writhing around, hitting his hand against the ground, and Rick thinks this is it, this is what it feels like. This is what he thought he'd never feel, not truly, not in the way the poems describe it. He's never felt so elated. He wants to keep this inside him always, this one memory, this one encompassing feeling, he doesn't ever want to forget exactly how it felt. The moment he realised he was in love.

With a bastard.

Vyvyan has squirmed closer, fingers clutching at Rick's ankle. He's trying to say something but it's not coming out right, and his sounds are distant in Rick's ears, anyway.

Vyvyan rests his head over Rick's shoe as he calms, trying to breathe, trying to still the tremors in his arms. Rick doubles over so that he can reach Vyvyan's shoulder, so that he can run his fingers around Vyvyan's ears, across his forehead, not quite touching the hair because he got in big trouble the last time he attempted that. But he needs to touch him. Because he's there. Because he can. Because good lord in heaven, he's allowed to touch Vyvyan.

One of Vyvyan's eyes open, squinting up at Rick, still grinning with all his teeth. Rick touches over his cheek.

'You're very stupid,' Rick informs him. It sets Vyvyan off again, turning his face into Rick's leg. Rick's breath stutters in a half-laugh.

He wishes he could tell them, those kids at school. He wishes he could show them all how wrong they were. He wishes they could see.

He's in love.

**vyvyan/neil:**

The moon has risen above the parameters of the window, so that when the static cuts off abruptly and the VCR player noisily begins to rewind, the room is cast into near-complete darkness.

The tap running in the background cuts off with a squeak but it doesn't entirely register in Neil's head, just floats around his being in an orbit of relative half-knowledge.

A glass comes to rest somewhere beside his elbow and Neil nods at it, hoping it won't linger here for too long because Neil's never been great at making conversation with glasses. They don't give much of their emotions away, not like a sturdy carrot or cabbage can.

'Hi.'

Vyv's voice comes out as a thick rasp, and Neil's mind has to tick over it a few times before it settles.

'I got you a drink.'

'Huh?' Neil squints down at the glass as Vyv comes to rest on his knees beside it, his upturned denim legs the only thing Neil can properly make out in the dimness.

'You said you were thirsty.'

'When the video began.' Neil rests his head on one arm so he can better inspect the glass. It gives him an odd look that makes Neil's heart sinks a bit.

'Well I was busy, then, wasn't I.'

The room grows silent again, but for the heavy breaths of Mike spread out of the couch and Rick's odd little snores from where he has his legs tucked up on the rickety chair. Vyvyan sighs and lies down on the ground, mirroring Neil.

'Don't let the cup make you feel bad, Neil. You're better than it.'

'I'm not.'

'You are. You're better than all the glasses in the world combined.'

Neil tries to put on a smile, for Vyvyan's sake. When it doesn't quite reach its mark, he lifts the glass and drinks from it instead. Vyvyan makes a noise of thin improvement.

'You don't have to feel okay, Neil.'

It doesn't make any sense. It's stupid, it's so stupid and it doesn't make sense. Neil hunches his shoulders forward, closing his eyes. He has no reason to feel like this. It's been a nice night, Vyvyan's being kind to him, he has no right. It's stupid.

'Thanks for the water,' he says and his voice doesn't tremble, not even once, but Vyvyan's arm settles across his back anyway, and Vyv's cold forehead studs press into the side of Neil's face.

**mike/neil:**

'And a shirt!' Neil calls when Mike is two stairs down. He retraces his steps back to Neil's room.

'I'm wearing a shirt.'

'No, but, like, one for your arms. If you can see the sun, then the sun can see you… or…' Neil frowns. 'No, it's a different saying.'

'What if I've got sunscreen on?'

Neil halts his rummaging through the drawer, turning his head again.

'Do you?'

Mike shrugs. 'What if I do?'

'Well, like, the rays can still get to you, right? They burrow into your skin and like, eat away at the cells and stuff and it's really nasty. Like, really, really horrid.'

Mike tilts his head, just slightly.

'Really horrid, Mike!'

'Okay. I'll wear the shirt.'

Neil lifts something sickly green from the drawer. 'You can wear this one.'

'And drown? No thanks, Neil, I rather think I'll find my own.'

'Can you get it, then. So I can see.'

Mike huffs but smiles regardless. 'Anything for you, my sweet lentil,' he calls as he leaves the room. Neil is frowning when he returns.

'Acceptable?' Mike asks, spreading his arms out.

'Lentils aren't sweet, Mike, you know that,' Neil says.

Mike sets his hands over Neil's forearms, gripping lightly, pulling him close. In the beginning, Mike had always pulled Neil by the biceps, but over time his hands had crept gradually lower to a place where Mike's shoulders weren't quite as strained.

'Are you appeased with the shirt, my love?'

Neil's face screws up at the endearment. 'Can you wear a hat, please?' he asks in a small voice. 'And if Vyvyan's going out as well, can you tell him to wear a hat? It's just that he doesn't listen to me and –' Neil's voice takes on a flustered tone '-there are _nasties _in the sun and they're going to eat his cells.'

'I'll tell him,' Mike says, and tugs on Neil's arm until Neil bends slightly. Mike kisses his cheek. 'I'll get a hat. Then I'm okay to go outside?'

'Yeah, okay, I guess.' Neil's hand grasps briefly at Mike's elbow and then drops. 'Just be sun safe.'

'Always.'

**mike/rick:**

'Fallen asleep, my son?'

'No.' Rick jerks himself upright, bringing his fist up under his chin in an attempt to look nonchalant. Mike chuckles, low in his throat.

'You're a funny boy, aren't you.'

Rick's not exactly sure why Mike does that, makes himself seem so much older when the rest of the time is spent trying to blend in with the kids. Rick can never quite pinpoint his feelings about it. Whether the warmth in his chest is embarrassment or something else.

'I don't know what you mean, Mike. I'm just a casual guy on a Saturday night enjoying a spot of – uhh, ah, t-table… watching.'

Rick taps his fingers slowly against the table. There's the smallest patch of drool drying at the side of his mouth and he turns it away from Mike's view. Mike's grinning at him.

'Of course you are.'

'What are – What are you up to, Mike?'

'I'm going to my bedroom. Nothing much interesting there but I'll be in it soon.'

Rick laughs nervously. 'Yeah?'

'Yeah.' Mike touches a hand to Rick's shoulder. 'Might I run into you there later?'

'Sure.' Rick's voice comes out breathier than he expects, but he supposes it's all still new. It's all still surprising. Still terrifying. Still brilliant. 'I'll be there.'

'Very good,' Mike says. Rick surreptitiously tries to wipe his mouth on his shoulder.

**rick/neil:**

'And I don't… and I don't think she likes me.'

'Well, she's stupid.'

'She's not, Rick. She's my mother.'

'I don't know, Neil. I don't know what to say.' Rick's voice trails into something small, and he leans over his bent knees to poke at the dirt at the bottom of the back steps. Neil can see it in his peripherals, but he keeps his eyes on the skyline, the jagged line of roofs digging into the blue. He's got his finger on his wrist to make sure his heart is still beating. It is. He forgets sometimes.

'You don't have to say anything. It was just that you asked.'

'Yeah.'

There's a shift in colour on the ground and Neil reluctantly moves his eyes toward it. It's a ladybird, determinedly crawling the mounds of dirt that Rick has been building. For one horrifying second, Neil thinks that when Rick jabs a finger out to it, he's intending to crush it. His heart stutters. But then Rick's finger settles just in front of it, and the ladybird climbs up onto his fingernail. He lifts it slowly to Neil's shoulder.

'It's just her generation.' Rick lets his arms dangle back between his legs. 'My parents are like that. They're a bunch of squares. I love them, because they're my parents but… I know what it's like, Neil.'

Neil turns his head as far as he can until the ladybird disappears behind his neck. He turns it to the other side to wait but the bug never re-emerges.

'You never seem like you've got any worries,' Neil says, and feels something like guilt lick up his ribs. That's selfish of him to say.

'I don't, not really. I'm great. Why should I have worries.' Rick is still looking down, but he doesn't seem sad. 'I'm a cracker at poetry and I've got great fashion sense and I've got the nicest boyfriend in the world. There's nothing I could complain about. Except the government regime.'

Neil turns his foot, so it touches Rick's. He's not sure he can say anything. He doesn't think he needs to. Rick knows.

**mike/vyvyan:**

Mike's got a nice shaped head for kissing. It's about the size of Vyv's hands, and Mike's ears are in just the right place to fit comfortably between his fingers. Mike doesn't like it, though, not usually. He says it makes him feel like a bird. Once he'd said that Vyvyan was meant to be the bird, and Vyvyan had said bloody a lot and thrown a punch at not-actually-Rick but a person nearby who looked vaguely like Rick, and then Mike had apologised and let Vyvyan hold his face while he kissed the hurt away. Vyvyan is becoming a stupid sop.

So Vyvyan doesn't hold Mike's face anymore, and Mike doesn't undermine him anymore, but sometimes, if Mike is in a very bad mood, or a very good mood, he'll grab Vyvyan's wrist and move his hand up to his face, and Vyvyan's heart will thud thud thud in the most punk pattern he's ever heard. Mike will half-stand on Vyvyan's feet and it doesn't do anything, doesn't make him taller, but it's nice and Vyvyan likes it. Vyvyan likes nearly everything about Mike. But his head the most. When Vyvyan's fingers touch at the back of Mike's hair, and Vyvyan thinks _you've got the world under your thumb but I've got you under mine, just for now, just in this moment._

And the next day Vyvyan will smash his head against walls and jam his own fist into his face for being so stupid, stupid and soppy and disgusting and everything he's never wanted to be. And then he'll smile.

It's the most awful situation he's ever been in.


	2. angry love - vn

[AN: accidentally got really into vyv/neil. sorry.]

* * *

'You don't get to say that. You don't get to say that anymore.' Vyvyan kicks angrily at the ground. His pockets aren't wide enough to jam his fists into so he crosses them across his chest instead, pacing, pacing and kicking.

Neil frowns, feels every muscle in his face pull down, dragged there by the weight that hangs over him, that never ever leaves. The constant push of molecules against him, just driving into his skull and he can't think. He can't sort anything out, can't even begin to think why because the pressure in the air just pushes and pushes and pushes and how can people even live like this. How can they stand in the morning. How can they bear to even look each other in the eye.

'You think no one cares about you, Neil? Well fuck you. Fuck you for thinking so lowly of me that you can't even acknowledge I may feel something. Fuck that, Neil, you fucking twat.'

'You don't mean it, Vyvyan,' Neil says levelly, and stares down at his feet but they're moving, the world is moving and he feels ill, feels nauseous, feels the weight running its long fingers down his arms.

'How would you know.' Vyvyan sits abruptly, in the middle of the ground, arms still crossed and head bowed. 'You don't have to do anything, Neil. You don't have to be anyone. You're just you and that's it. It's not _because _of anything. You're just Neil and that's it. Fuck.'

'Vyv, don't.' Neil feels like he's going to cry. Like he's going to disintegrate and the wind will carry him off. He'll feed the earth and nourish the plants and not have to deal with human emotions. With the pain that forms so easily within the roots of a painless thing. Existence is a poison and Neil doesn't wish it upon anyone.

'Don't tell me what to do.' Vyvyan's foot slaps angrily against the ground. His shoulders tense further. 'Don't tell me I can't love you because you don't know shit. You're just a stupid hippie and if I can love you for that, if I can feel anything positive about that then it's real, and don't you fucking belittle me about it. I love you, Neil, and you can ignore it or fuck off to another city or do whatever the fuck you like with that information but it's not changing.'

'I don't—' Neil is falling. He's floating but he's falling and the shapes are moving with him but the colour, the colour stays behind. A splotch in the distance, breaking up all the black, breaking up the lines and the shapes and the universe that is spilling from Neil's mouth. His mother would hate this if she knew. It's not proper to throw up the universe. Not when you've got company. The tree comes back first. The tree and then the concrete and then the pressure, pushing at his head again. He's on the ground. His hands are clenched.

Vyvyan is breathing heavily, ragged, tugging at the ends of his hair. He looks up and he's angry, he's so angry and Neil did that. Neil caused that. Neil is the poison in that painless place.

'Can you live with it?' Vyvyan asks roughly.

Neil's eyes aren't wired right. None of him was put together right. He cries and the tears go backwards, trickle down inside his head and come out in his mouth. He swallows them. The motion moves his head, makes him nod, and then he can't stop. Just nods and nods and nods and nods and nods and burns with the heat on his shoulders, of Vyvyan's hands searing through the cotton of his jersey.

He only realises he's being hugged when it stops, and he doesn't think about the foreignness of it, of having someone's arms completely circle him, press in like they're not scared, not repulsed, not wishing they didn't have to. He doesn't think about it because he doesn't want to. Just wants to feel. Wants to push back at the pressure, just a bit.

'And it's terrible, but I do,' are the words falling from Vyvyan's mouth, getting tangled up in Neil's ears. 'We'll just work past it, won't we.'

Neil looks up. The sky nods at him, endless and good and pure and knowing, and if the sky thinks he can, then he can.


	3. weird ooc - vn

[AN: this is a really weird, out of character one.]

* * *

Vyvyan had told him once, half-asleep on the lawn, shivering, that his mother had said only heat could scald away the ugliness of sin. He'd said he could feel it gathering beneath his fingernails, and his fingers had dug into the soft soil beneath him.

'I tried to find it,' Vyvyan had said, and Neil hadn't even meant to come out here. He didn't know that Vyv was here. He'd just wanted to think, that was all. Just wanted the chill of the outside air to condense his head, until his brain no longer pushed at the inner workings of his ears. He'd just wanted to breathe. 'In the turn of a tap.'

Vyvyan's body is convulsing against the ground, like his muscles are trying to retract and he's resisting. The atmosphere hangs static around him. He's not himself.

'And it burned, but I never…' Vyvyan turns his face into the grass. There's something building in Neil's throat and he panics, toxins solidifying, occupying his internal space. 'I never went as far as you, Neil.'

The world spins but that's fine because Neil's not here right now. There's someone leaning up against the back doorway but it's not him. There's someone weeping but it's not any of them.

It didn't happen.

It's a lost memory.

It's black matter.

It's okay. He knows how to be by himself. He knows how to be safe by himself, he does. But he's got an odd expression on his face and it takes him a moment to realise he's not looking at himself. He's looking at Vyvyan.

Neil turns the tap off, sitting hunched.

'I'm fine,' he murmurs. 'I'm having on okay day today, thank you, Vyvyan.'

'Yeah?' Vyvyan asks. He seats himself cross-legged at the door, far enough away not to be a bother, not to be at risk of seeing anything, to just exist in a tangential space.

'I'm not going to do anything.'

Neil sinks into the water, until the warmth laps at his face and it doesn't feel any different, there's not a point where the water begins, but the molecules shift and he knows theoretically that it's there. Below his nose. Always below his nose.

'I know.'

'Do you?'

The enamel stretches up on either side of Neil, layered in living bacteria. He can't see Vyvyan from down here. Can't see much of anything, but it's bright, and that's nice.

'Maybe I just like your company, Neil.'

'I don't see how that could be so.'

'I didn't ask you to see,' Vyvyan snaps. Something taps against something else. Neil doesn't know what. 'I'm not your minder.'

'I think you are.'

The water is at his eyes but it's below his nose. That's the rule. It creeps into the corners of Neil's eyes and he finds it curious that it makes them feel dry. If they're dry, then that's good. Dry means okay. He's learnt that.

If the water's cold, then the effect isn't the same. Neil's eyes sting, then. His body goes into paralysis. Sometimes he sinks, but it's not his fault. He would move his limbs if he could. It's not his fault. If he forgets the hot tap, then it's not his fault.

'Maybe,' Vyvyan says, quietly. It could be the end of a sentence. Neil feels the guilt begin to trickle from behind his tongue. Maybe could mean a lot of things. Maybe could destroy a lot of things. Maybe could be the last breath as the weight compacts down. 'Maybe you do need saving,' Vyvyan starts. 'But I'm not trying to do it. I'm just trying to get myself by.'

Neil moves his feet slowly through the water. Heat pushes up against his arms, cocooning around him.

'Okay,' he says.


	4. bizarre love triangle

[AN: this is like, an opposite perspective to kirby's fic, wherein asexual neil is in a relationship with vyv, and vyv's got a no-strings-attached physical thing going on with rick. it's dreadfully sentimental.]

* * *

It's chipping away at Rick. It's flaking pieces of him away and that presses in heavily on Neil. That's his fault. It's always his fault. But what can he say? This isn't his domain. This is something private that he knows nothing about. What goes on behind closed doors, it doesn't exist to him. But Rick...

The wind doesn't touch him anymore. The sun shies away. He doesn't bounce on his feet and he tries to compensate through crazed grins. Forceful injection of synthetic reality into all of them, and it doesn't seep like a poison, it sits concentrated inside Rick and Neil hates it, he hates it. He's destroying a life when all he wanted to do was quietly subsist.

'He's fine,' Vyvyan will say, because he never wants to talk about it. He thinks he's crossing a line. He thinks Neil will be upset or he thinks he's betraying Rick or Neil doesn't know what he thinks. Because Neil romanticises it, and he thinks past it, and he builds it up into a running descant when maybe that isn't it at all. Maybe Vyvyan just doesn't care. No. He doesn't mean that.

It pushes down in Neil's abdomen, a creature that writhes, that rears at his sickening thoughts. Vyvyan does nothing but care. Vyvyan is… Vyvyan is… Vyvyan is Neil's life. It's the most shameful confession Neil is willing to make inside the silence of his head, the silence that Vyvyan has constructed by walling the pressure back. Vyvyan is a gift, but in some ways, he's just as destroyed inside as Neil. He's rotten. He's decaying and Neil adds to that, like he does to everything, like he did to Rick, and Vyvyan won't _talk _about it.

'I told him right off the bat,' and Vyvyan won't look at his eyes, but his voice is so blithe, so frivolous, and it would have sucked Neil in at the beginning. He would have believed it at the beginning. Vyvyan is blinking is out of time with his heartbeat and it makes Vyvyan's heart sad and Neil tries to tell him, and Vyvyan listens but he doesn't get it. He doesn't try to get it. Anything about Neil he can, he puts all the effort he can into understanding Neil, but about himself Vyvyan is the outcrop of a cliff face. He can't see what he doesn't understand is there, and Neil can't push him because if Vyvyan ever left—

Neil presses his palms to something flat, collects himself, sets up the paradigm of his anthropological being and continues to exist as a person. He has to remind himself. He has to stay grounded, stay here, he's got to be here. Him. Neil.

'Look,' Vyvyan's hand settles at the back of his head. 'Don't stress. It's not your problem. You shouldn't have to worry about this, it's not what I wanted.'

The hand leaves and Neil hears the clatter of a spoon thrown into the sink.

'He knows, okay? I wouldn't have started anything if I didn't think he knew.'

Vyvyan comes back, pries Neil's hands off the wall and turns him. He presses his forehead to Neil's temple.

'Please don't worry about it. It's not on you.'

'He's dying, Vyvyan.'

Vyvyan laughs, short and dry. He leans back and lifts his eyebrows. He's so casual sometimes. He's too good at masking things. Neil can't tell if it's real or not sometimes, but his blinking, it doesn't align to his heartbeat and the sorrow is going to find him one day. Neil will know when it does.

'Silly boy. He's not dying. He's a grown man and he knows what he's doing. You of all people know that love isn't a grand thing that can destroy a person, Neil, and he's not in love, anyway. Don't make out like he is.'

'But if he was…'

Because Neil's not. Or he is. He thinks he is. He doesn't know. No, he can't be. It makes his head hurt, thinking about it. Trying to will it into existence. Trying to find it inside him, isolate a foreign feeling and pray that the label fits. He's not in love. He'll never be in love. But maybe he is. Maybe for Vyvyan, he is.

'Don't think too hard.'

'You're— I like… having you, Vyvyan. I don't, I didn't, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Like that.'

'You have me.' Vyvyan nods carefully, his facial muscles pulling a half smile into existence.

Neil wants to touch it sometimes, see how his face works, but Neil doesn't have good hands. He doesn't have elegant fingers or a gentle touch. He does have a touch, though. He's been assured of that. When gravity spills out into a quantum mass and Neil wavers on the edge, and his mind threatens to leave him or devour him or control him, Vyvyan manually presses Neil's fingertips to his face until Neil's pattern is all over Vyvyan, his cells are clinging to Vyvyan's, and Vyvyan tells him that he can touch, he's still here, he's still real. There's so much more of Rick on Vyvyan than Neil can ever hope to surpass.

And the creature inside Neil, it coos and titters, it rubs its hands up his insides, because when Neil sees Rick, and Rick is visibly wilting, he's losing himself, he's caught in a barren void that Neil knows only too well… It's Neil's fault, it's Neil's fault, it's Neil's fault, and the smallest part of him… the tiniest speck of him that festers into something putrid and diseased… is happy.


	5. a kissing thing - vn

[AN: haaaahahaha.]

* * *

Neil doesn't mind kissing because there's an ethereal quality to it. Something surreal, something that takes him out of his head until he can just hover above his body, just a short string away. Vyvyan's never as aggressive about it as Neil expects him to be. Maybe he's just being nice or maybe this is how he always is. A small part of Neil wishes he could see Vyvyan kiss someone else, just to compare. He thinks he'd be okay with that, but he thinks he'd be okay with a lot of things. Like pulling that sparrow from a person's bumper to give it a proper burial. That wasn't... that wasn't...

Vyvyan has pulled back, mouth still open slightly but brows creased.

'Are you still here?'

Neil nods, and he's not sure where his eyebrows have gone except that they're not sitting low on his eyes anymore. He supposes, based on what he's seen of other people, that he may be happy, or at least pleased. It would explain why he feels so light.

Vyvyan stills his nodding and kisses over his mouth again, gentle like he can be sometimes, like when he'd cupped his hands and stood so very still for Neil to transfer the caterpillar into them.

Neil's kissing is mostly replicating but he thinks he's all right at it. Maybe when he's compared Vyvyan with someone else he can compare his kissing as well. That could be okay. Maybe he'll ask about it. Maybe he'll do nothing. That sounds better.

Vyvyan tugs slightly on Neil's shoulders when he falls down onto his back, but his grip loosens enough for Neil's to decide. Neil follows, and the blood rushes down to his head when he bends. It throws his centre of weight off a bit, and the angle's not right, and he flounders but he can do these things. He can do things.

He shuffles to the side, lifting one knee over Vyvyan so he can settle atop him. His hair all falls forward in a neat curtain, pooling on Vyvyan's face. Vyvyan leans his head back, which mostly consists of pushing his chin up, and makes a tacky sound. Neil tries to push his hair behind his ears as best he can with one hand still bracing himself. Vyvyan's hands aren't supporting him anymore because they're picking long strands of hair from his mouth, and he's looking somewhat amused and a bit weary.

'Sorry,' Neil mutters, and tries to push the bulk of it back over his shoulder. The motion makes his arm buckle and he drops, skull crashing into Vyvyan's cheekbone, and it pounds for the longest few seconds before clearing. 'Sorry,' he says again.

Vyvyan rolls him to the side, one eye closed and the other squinting. He's still for a moment, exhaling, and then his head bobs in a nod.

'Let's do it differently,' he says, and leans half over Neil. His hand moves up to Neil's face but Neil's neck jerks before it gets there, the smallest choking noise escaping him before he can swallow it back. Vyvyan's head is bowed, and when Neil tips his chin to see, Vyvyan is trying to untangle Neil's necklace from one of his wristband studs.

Vyvyan gives him a sort of sad grin that Neil has come to associate with apologies and then lies down beside Neil, touching but only because there's limited space on the bed, Neil guesses.

'Maybe we could give it a break for now,' Vyvyan suggests.

'That's not stopping, is it? Just… pausing.'

'Yeah, just pausing.'

Vyvyan's head pokes into Neil's vision again, propped up on one of his hands.

'Do you want to go outside for a while?' he asks. 'Get some sun?'

'Yeah,' Neil says. He was going to say it sounded nice but he missed his window, and it feels too awkward to leave it so late. It just rattles around in his head, instead, looking for an escape.

'Come on, then.' Vyvyan slides off the bed and onto his feet, crossing around and offering his hands out to Neil. When he's pulled him up to a standing position, he looks up at Neil, and Neil is startled – like he always is – at the height different. 'I am too, you know,' Vyvyan says, and Neil was certain the words didn't actually leave him but it's been known to happen in the past. 'Let's find another worm, I want to measure it,' Vyvyan says on his way out the door.

Neil follows, setting his hair straight, feeling his spirit tug along behind him.


	6. gross thing - rm

[AN: hahahahahahaha god knows why. rick/mike. vyvyan accidentally walked in. he's not, you know, there.]

* * *

It's not how he imagined it to be. It's better. He feels ahead of time, like he's racing and he's winning. For once in his life he's winning. He's hot and his blood is pumping and he's moving with his own heartbeat, which is fast so he goes fast, faster, faster, to beat time. He's got another person's sweat on him. He's got another person's saliva on him. This isn't a trick, it's not having his head locked underneath Vyvyan's arm and having gob roll down his face. This is proper. This is Freudian. This is pushing completely inside another human being and feeding on their respect, gulping it down his throat until it's rolling through him and he's rolling with it.

This is reality.

It's locking eyes with Vyvyan and not slowing down for a second, Mike's hips under his hands, the bitter taste of Mike's cologne on his mouth. The backs of Mike's thighs touched to his and Vyvyan is looking him dead in the eye but he can see it, he's got to see it. Rick wants this burned into him.

Mike can't see. His head is bowed into the fold of his arms and he murmurs at intervals. Most of it is short, some of it doesn't make sense. He's drunk. He'd given consent before Rick had even grasped the thought, only asked with half-closed eyes that he wasn't Vyvyan, and later that he wasn't Neil. Rick isn't egocentric enough to think that Mike didn't ask about him because he wanted him, but its inflated enough to make sure Mike won't forget.

Rick braces his hand on Mike's back and it slides from the sweat, gets caught by his shoulder blade and stays there, over a scattering of freckles Rick has never thought to consider. Vyvyan wouldn't even be able to see them from the doorway. It's Rick's to know, Rick's to remember, Rick's to press his chest over later when he gets a bit closer.

Vyvyan breaks and turns away, closing the door behind him. Rick's teeth grind because he's grinning and he can't stop, the jerking of his shoulders pushing his jaw together. He can hear his bones scraping in their sockets. He's been dealt a royal flush and it pushes delight through his chest, the pun of it. He's either got too much oxygen or not enough but he's got the slope of Mike's back bending away from him and Mike's skin rubbing against him and his name dripping from Mike's lips like expensive liqueur.

He's on top of the fucking world.


	7. overdose - rn

[AN: do you guys need like... suicidal trigger warnings or anything? i don't think any of my stuff is really safe.]

* * *

'Mike?'

Rick knocks gently at the door, keeping a steady rhythm and eventually laying his palms flat against it when there's no response.

'Mike?' he tries again, a bit louder.

The door swings open and it takes Rick a moment to remember to look down. Mike looks expectant, one lock of hair sitting askew on his head. It distracts Rick enough that he forgets to speak, and Mike tries to slam the door shut again. Rick's fingers prevent it from closing, and he whips his hand up to his chest and curses.

'What is it, Rick,' Mike asks. 'I've got a bird in here. Or, I don't, but I might.'

'Do you know where Vyvyan is?'

'He's down at the river, skipping stones. How should I know?'

'I just wondered when he might be back.'

Mike makes a show of lifting his watch and pointing his head toward it. Rick tenses his fingers slowly, sore and throbbing.

'It's happened again.'

Mike gives the beginnings of a laugh and nods.

'Well you might have said. If Vyvyan's not here then you call. Have you done that?'

'Yeah.'

'What do you want me to do, then?'

'I don't know. I just thought I'd tell you. I'm going to sit with him. You'll tell me if Vyvyan gets back, won't you?'

'You'll see him before it do.'

'Right. Okay. I'll be… downstairs, then.'

The door closes and Rick puts his head against it, he's not sure why. For all that he has a poetic soul he's pants at actually reading into things. It's a bit like a tragic hero, really. That's almost definitely what Rick is. The tragic, unsung hero of his generation. He wishes Vyvyan was here.

Rick has to hit the television set a few times to make it work. The coat hanger antenna tends to be temperamental at the best of times. Scooby Doo crackles to life and Rick would grin at the irony of it if he knew what irony was.

He sits beside Neil, careful not to touch him in case it's contagious or something. He was going to turn Neil on his side but Neil's been pretty still and Rick can hear him breathing, if lightly. He thinks he'll notice if Neil starts to gag or convulse or anything creepy like that. If Rick is here then he can turn him over. Rick just has to stay here.

He doesn't know the characters' names but he tries to narrate as best he can, anyway. He mentions green-shirt and hot bird and nerdy hot bird. He knows the dog is Scooby and he's sure to enunciate it carefully whenever he has to tell Neil about a particularly amusing endeavour. Neil doesn't laugh but he wouldn't, anyway. He's stoic when he watches Scooby Doo but he'll say afterwards that it was funny. It's probably because he's trying to gauge Rick's reaction during. Rick is the trendsetter, after all, and Neil is nothing if not a follower.

The programme ends and Rick changes position a few times, trying to ease his spine. He ends up with Neil's hand in his, just to check that his pulse his still jumping. He can't hear him breathing anymore but it could just be that the silence is deafening. He keeps his eyes between the window and the front door, wondering who's going to get to it first, and if he'll be in trouble when they do. He's supposed to know what to do. Vyvyan had told him once, but Rick didn't think it mattered because Vyvyan is usually here. But if Vyvyan cares then Rick has to care or he'll cop a hiding for it. He doesn't want Neil to go, anyway. He sticks up for Rick occasionally. He gets him more blankets in the winter and makes him soup when he's ill.

The paramedics get there first, taking their bloody time and shooing Rick away when he tries to admonish them for their tardiness. He quiets enough for them to let him stay, so he can see what they do in case he needs to know.

'What's he taken?' one asks.

'I don't know.'

'Powder? Heroin?'

'No, none of that. He just. I don't know. Pills or some such, I guess. Possibly some hippie herbal crap. I don't know.'

They pack Neil up onto a stretcher and he looks more gangly than usual. He looks loose, like he might be melting. They tell Rick they're going to take him in, and does he want to come along. He does, but he can't, because Vyvyan comes stomping in and harasses one of the paramedics to get their penlight, holding Neil's eyelid open so he can shine it in.

Vyvyan climbs in the ambulance after Neil because he's attracted to the thrill of it all. He says it's good practise and it's an all right excuse, Rick supposes, and it's not like Vyvyan really knows that Rick accidentally snogged Neil once or twice. He thinks. He doesn't really remember. It doesn't make them anything, and it's probably good that Vyvyan is even showing an interest because he's been the only barrier between Neil and – well, Neil and that door, sometimes.

Mike comes downstairs after they're gone, while Rick is on the couch with his legs folded up, looking at the dent that Neil left in the cushions with his lax weight.

'Vyvyan came back, then?'

'Yeah, but he's gone, now. He went with them.'

'Let's see how many come back,' Mike says, and then the tap turns on and Rick can hear his glass tapping against the sick. Rick leans his head back and watches the ceiling.


	8. worried - vn

[AN: neil's very worried about this stuff.]

* * *

It floods through Vyvyan. His eyes snap open and he heaves, water spilling from his mouth and ears. Dripping and he can't pull himself up, doesn't know which direction to go in. Just inhales around the rivulets his hair is creating across his lips.

'Wake up! _Wake up!'_

Neil's voice is too loud. It's hoarse and worn and sinks into Vyvyan like the chill of water on his skin.

'What,' he gurgles. Neil's large hands grasp at his shoulders and shake him. Vyvyan bats them away with uncoordinated fingers and he tries to clear his head, just long enough to rap his knuckles forcefully against Neil's head.

Neil sniffs and sits abruptly, knees bent up by his chin.

'Sorry,' he murmurs. 'You're awake.'

'I am now.' Vyvyan tries to wipe the wet away with his sleeve, but it sops against his cheek. 'What the hell are you playing at?'

'I thought—' Neil's adam's apple moves jaggedly in his throat, like it might escape. It moves a fast beat in time to his pulse. 'You didn't wake up. I tried, and— and you didn't. You wouldn't wake up.'

'I was tired.' Vyvyan rolls onto his back, hand pressed over his eyes. He feels afloat in disorientation. He feels drowned. 'I had a few lagers last night. It takes me a while to get going in the morning.'

'It's evening. You were still for such a long time.'

Neil's voice follows the same path it always does, level and unobtrusive. An afterthought. A pre-emptive apology laced in the baritone of it.

Vyvyan breathes in the quiet. His ribs ache like they haven't in a while.

'Sorry,' he says before Neil can say it again. It helps to push some of the malice down, keep his true words at bay. He's not sure Neil could take it. He might be fine but Vyvyan has learned to be careful. To not give him the benefit of the doubt.

'Yeah,' Neil says. It's one of those things he does, a puzzle he's worked out long before Vyvyan will. He predicts conversation, or he makes it up. He always follows his own pace, works in his own time.

Vyvyan turns it over in his head until the options drop into place. It's too vague to know for sure, but he guesses. Neil has gone white, hair pulled down over his eyes. The skin over his knuckles strains like it might split. He's scared. Vyvyan scared him.

Vyvyan looks up at the ceiling and counts until he's back in Neil's time.

'I'm not you.'

It has a bitter edge to it, although Vyvyan doesn't mean it. It doesn't always make a difference to Neil. He takes his assurances where they come.

'I know.'

It's new. It's Neil making an effort. To live outside himself.

'I just needed to make sure.'

'Well I'm here, aren't I. I'm awake, and I'm freezing.'

'I'll make you some tea.'

'Yeah.' Vyvyan looks over so Neil can see him, really see him. Neil's eyes tick between his features, cataloguing them all. He smiles weakly, and Vyvyan gives some stale grimace in return. 'You do that.'


End file.
